Ral, Crackling Wit – Bloomburrow
Date Reviewed: July 29, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 5
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
I suspect people are going to be having many conversations about what animal form would be used by various Magic characters when visiting Bloomburrow in the coming days. Instead of pre-empting those, I’ll just point out that Ral has achieved something that no other character did: he brought the storm keyword back to Standard. I hear that somebody out there felt that was close to the least likely thing that could ever happen. But that’s not as pressing an issue as what impact he’s going to have, and I think that impact is going to be big. Despite the “wow!” factor attached to his ultimate, a lot more damage (metaphorical and literal) is going to be done by his other abilities, especially in decks with lots of cheap spells to make his tokens seem very aggressive indeed, and to keep him out of burn range when he uses his -3. When you do get to his ultimate, you’ll soon find that there’s a reason most instants and sorceries don’t have the storm keyword – even spells that were designed to have it and were made to be less overwhelming often turn out to be devastating, much less those designed in any other way.
Once again, in the interests of harm minimization, I should probably point out that it’s fun to grant storm to spells like Warp World and Thieves’ Auction, but probably not more than one time ever.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
There’s something deeply humorous about the plane of Bloomburrow turning extraplanar visitors into the creaturefolk that populate the plane, leading to many bad jokes about “fursonas” for the extant planeswalkers. Ral, the planeswalker involved directly in the story, turns into an Actual Literal Otter, which is amusing to literally everyone besides Ral for many reasons, but here we are.
Ral, Crackling Wit is very much an Izzet spellslinger card that plays well with both the Otters of Bloomburrow and the extant shell of the deck. Uniquely, he’s quite good at protecting himself by making a horde of Otters, and his passive plays well into that (and rewards the spell-weaving Otters you have). His passive, in particular, makes that vicious ultimate far more feasible than most ultimates, and while it’s more flashy than powerful, storm has always been a mechanic that has pushed powerful cards over the line, and giving it to all of your spells is good. His -3 also can put in work to dig for more gas, and while it might not be as showy as some abilities, seeing three cards deeper for four mana while also threatening Rude Things is a good place to be.
I do think Ral is more than the sum of his parts, and while he needs time to really roll, he can win a game on his own with his friends, and he plays perfectly into the gameplan of his colors. I think he’ll have a place in Constructed decks (more Standard and Pioneer, but there might be a Modern home for him), and any planeswalker able to defend themselves while creeping into Rude Things territory may well be worth a look.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 5 (making a bunch of bodies alone while ticking up makes Ral the kind of Limited build-around bomb decks dream of)
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4
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